Wednesday, April 20, 2016

A to Z of Adventure! Q is for Queen of the Demonweb Pits

What else could it be? Well...funny you should say that. There is also a few Vampire Queen adventures out there and there is the adventure path I am playing around with, War of the Witch Queens. But I guess really there is only one queen and only one Q module.

Queen of the Demonweb Pits is the ultimate finale that began with the characters looking into some giant raids. Behind it all was the Drow and Lolth!...er wait. Wasn't supposed to be the Elder Elemental Eye? Tharizdun? I mean that is what is going on in T1 Village of Hommlet.

Well as it turns out Q1 was supposed to be different. It wasn't the vision that Gary wanted. Now the official story is that Gary was too busy to work on Q1 because he was working on T2 The Temple of Elemental Evil. We can see bits of his thinking in T1, S4 and WG5. So David Sutherland came in to finish it off. At least that is story we have been told. According to Shannon Appelcline this was the start of Gary's eventual ouster at TSR.

Regardless of how, what and why, Q1 is fondly remembered to this day 36 years later. As part of the GDQ series it is considered to be one of the greatest adventures of all time.

I remember playing this back in the day and that confusing as hell map. I remember talking to friends in the days WAY before the Internet and how we would speculate on Q2 and Q3.

Like T1 and the mythical stand-alone T2, a DIY Q2 would be great.

SO TO MY REGULAR READERS: What would be in YOUR Q2?

Would you have the characters look into the Elder Elemental Eye connection? Maybe there would be a civil war among the drow; those that support the EEE and those that support Lolth.

I suppose I could take a few pages from Expedition to the Demonweb Pits for 3.5 edition of D&D to. I do know I need to work out this Lolth-Tharizdûn issue before my players get there!

6 comments:

IIRC, Q1 provides sketchy notes on a number of worlds that are connected by portals to the Demonweb. Q2 should expand on those teasers, as those worlds (& Greyhawk) learn of each other's existence and Lolth's machinations against them. Some worlds might unite against her, while others will try plunder their neighbors for their own gain. Also, any PCs that survive Q1 and defeat Lolth (however temporarily) might inadvertently set off a multidimensional war, as her cults across the many worlds contest who will fill the power vacuum.

IIRC, Q1 provides sketchy notes on a number of worlds that are connected by portals to the Demonweb. Q2 should expand on those teasers, as those worlds (& Greyhawk) learn of each other's existence and Lolth's machinations against them. Some worlds might unite against her, while others will try plunder their neighbors for their own gain. Also, any PCs that survive Q1 and defeat Lolth (however temporarily) might inadvertently set off a multidimensional war, as her cults across the many worlds contest who will fill the power vacuum.

Q1 for me would mean the first quarter of the year in the workplace at some long ago time. Associated with terrible things like target setting and collections and other terms the mind has shuddered at and selectively forgotten. The contrast between yours and mine made me smile today.